Produced by Sir Andrew Ferris, a new single from Belfast's most chaotic instrumental hazards in which they compete throughout to pull off ever more unlikely elastic riffs. They're also distributing it through one of those free-for-a-tweet schemes.
It feels like Alessio Nataliza has been tossing out tracks every so often for the whole time STN has been going, but he finally has an album out on Memphis Industries in 2011, previewed by this slo-mo lament of underwater dreampop.
What will Valhalla Dancehall sound like on the evidence of its first single? God knows is the comforting (as far as BSP go) answer on the evidence of this Kraut-synth exercise that mentions a "Dame Vera clay pigeon shoot" in the second line. If you've seen them this year this is the one with "are you going to the party?" in the chorus, only it doesn't sound much like that version did any more.
Siouxsie Sioux fronting the (second album) Horrors? There's something early gothic about it, certainly, but that guitar sound is equal parts Lee Ranaldo and John McGeogh. As with Chapter 24 the other week it could be that post-punk darkness is, even with a second White Lies album pending, about to get its good name back.
Oh, and where were the four page NME features about sprawling local collectives when the first album was out? Tricky to pick just the one highlight from One Hundred Suns (not counting Fighting Smiles, which was on our tracks of 2009 list), but we pick Compound for Hugo's brave falsetto, the undulatingly shifting Afro rhythm, the crosshatched harmonies and the detail it sets itself to take off at high gear and then just doesn't.
Former Fanfarlo member makes record that sounds a bit like Fanfarlo. Well, insomuch that it's a storytelling electric folk record that's intricately produced, lushly arranged, graceful and full of instruments.
Nothing very baile about the funk peddled by the former Bonde Do Role singer, but this debut single is better than anything on the second CSS album. In fact it sounds like the synth malfunctioning squiggles of early electro-disco accidentally half-taped over Johnny Remember Me.
Is it too easy to say a Manchester band fronted by a spiteful ranter are quite a bit like The Fall? Yes. Yes it is. But there's a gene shared of oddball Northern poetry over garage indie on the verge of falling apart (more early Fall, that bit) This is from an EP out on the 29th called The Green Room, which will be on Bandcamp when the time comes
'Schtick', isn't it? Anyhow, Long may be the first person we've seen to name Lloyd Cole as a primary influence, and he'd know all about cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin as he's also live guitarist for Rose Elinor Dougall. Actually it sounds most like a Robert Forster Go-Betweens song, and maybe some Robyn Hitchcock.
We were trying to remember whether these Mancunians used to be instrumental - they certainly used to have a post-rock sweep and monolithic structure. Now they're in a not dissimilar ballpark to The Strange Death Of Liberal England in their tunnel vision theatrics and post-Arcade Fire ambitious string-set vaults.
Just when you think you have them pegged as yet more New Wave peddlers, the guitars and harmonies start pinballing around and the title makes more sense. The first really decent Young & Lost Club release in a while. Although if anyone can tell us what the twice repeated guitar riff in the bridge sounds very much like (starting 2:36 on Soundcloud) we'd be grateful because it's been annoying us all week.
With an album on the way it's possible these London-based Frenchpeople (plus a moonlighting Pocketbook) could be next year's indiepop breakout band, configuring Camera Obscura to a Francophile poise.
Perhaps just to annoy us knowing they have plenty of new songs, the Pics are putting out a new EP the Monday before Christmas, this time the self-explanatory Jonny 'Huddersfield' Helm Sings, on which the titular sticksman takes up vocals on two old cuts, this one a new version of an old Moshi Moshi B-side.
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